Power Rangers Megaforce: Season 1 Review

Power Rangers Megaforce ended its first season on Saturday with the cliffhanger-y “End Game”, one of the best of this season’s 21 aired episodes.

That finale upped the stakes, bringing in a new threat in the form of the huge Armada, and featuring the first time this set of Rangers actually appear to lose the battle. More than providing any closure, it really functions as set-up for the next, highly-anticipated season. It also stands an example of everything that works and (possibly moreso) doesn’t work about this one.

In this not-quite-anniversary first season, Megaforce stands in an awkwardly mediocre spot. In many ways, it’s a step-up from the previous Samurai season, mostly in terms of how it handles its humor and the likeablility of the characters. It certainly has its embarrassing “why do you think anyone wants this?” moments (Troy and Emma’s…song in “Harmony and Dizchord”), though generally not beyond any other kids’ show. It’s not offensive by any means, but there definitely are some problems. With all the hype for the 20 year anniversary, what exactly has this season truly brought to the fold? At that, how do all of its elements click? What worked, and what didn’t? Let’s break it all down.

The Mise-en-Scene

The superficial elements of this season are a serious plus. One of the positives in the original review of the premiere was just how darn pretty everything is, and that definitely continues throughout. Everything is just gorgeous, with some of the best costume and zord designs in the franchise. They’re more complicated than necessary, to be sure, but the golden accents and elaborate symbols sell this idea of magnificent power to celebrate a long history. The Command Center set is the most disappointing aspect of the production design, though, being claustrophobically small and underwhelming. It does, however, make use of the Ranger keys as decoration, which is definitely a cool plus.

The triumphant visual theme (an “angel” theme in the Japanese source material) yields some beautifully rendered backgrounds and effects in the battles. The HD picture, which started back in Samurai, means this is probably the most vivid and crisp-looking season yet, and the cinematography in the American footage matches it in confidence. It’s the best-looking the show’s ever been, and the presumably boosted budget the season received clearly shows.

The Theme

The very first episode of the show establishes how much Megaforce would be borrowing from the first season of the franchise. In this sense, the background of the story harkens back to the first season’s vague “it’s all magic and aliens” themes and explanations, which automatically yielded a world that pretty much had no rules for how fantastical it wanted to get.

The thing is, Mighty Morphin did have the initial dinosaur theme to latch onto. And it played up lots of secret identity and high school tropes. Both of those concepts were updated in 2004’s Dino Thunder, which did a stand-up job paying homage to its high school/dino-themed roots. Megaforce, on the other hand, is just an amalgam of everything–mythical animal zords, real animal zords, elemental powers, environmental powers, trading cards, aliens, robots, mutants–and as a result, it’s without a sense of identity. With no specific focus on dinosaurs, time travel, space travel, ninjas, etc., it leaves the feel of the season something to be desired. Even the high school stuff barely has time to be touched on. The use of cards–the most blatant toy product placement in quite a while–never really fits into the show that well, either. It was unavoidable thanks to the source material, but they’re also never really used enough to justify their existence. When the Rangers do use the cards, it honestly just doesn’t fit.

To be fair, the idea of human nature and emotion prevailing over evil is consistently hammered in as a more abstract theme, which is decent enough. It factors in heavily with Robo Knight’s arc–the centerpoint of the season, despite how simplistic it may be–which features him contemplating how useful human Rangers are. Robo Knight, and the way he plays into the theme of the season, are some of the best parts of the structure. It’s fun to see him spend so much of the time as a loner, and the way he butts heads with his teammates definitely breaks the “happy go-lucky” streak the show has by its midpoint. Like most things this season, though, not nearly enough is done with Robo Knight as a character, His struggles to understand his place as a Sixth Ranger rather than a loner, eventually seeing the benefits of the human condition, are never expanded on as much as they ought to be. But even at its cheesiest–Robo Knight…rapping in “The Human Condition” comes to mind–the little we do see is effective. New members of the team traditionally make up a big chunk of the season’s storyline, so it’s no surprise that Robo Knight’s place ties in so heavily with the the season’s theme.

There’s also some pro-environment themes tossed about in the middle section of the season, but very little is ultimately made of them. That’s probably a good thing, considering Power Rangers has never had a good track record when it came to preaching about pollution.

The Cast

As with any Power Rangers season, good ones included, there’s no escape from the hammy overacting. If you aren’t used to it as a fan at this point, you probably should have bailed 20 years ago. With that said, the cast this year is what saves the season from being a failure, through-and-through. Every cast member seems to enjoy being there, reveling in the cheesy goodness and the fun of the show. Azim Rizk is probably most talented of the bunch, bringing the snarky Jake to life from the first moment and becoming the most loveable character of the season. John Mark Loudermilk is a surprise as Noah, too, nailing the nerdy seriousness without overdoing it. He also gets some fun interaction with Robo Knight, which is a pair that ought to have been explored more. Ciara Hanna as Gia isn’t the breakout she seemed she’d be from the first episode, but she’s plenty competent. Christina Masterson gets outshined by the rest of the cast, but she tends to be capable of the subtlest acting when necessary.

Really, the only weak link in the cast continues to be Andrew Gray–which is a shame, since Troy gets the most screentime as the Red Ranger, and Gray does honestly seem to be trying. But while the overacting of most cast members sort of fits the wacky world, Gray settles on monotone and stone-faced most of the time. It may not be as bad as making Troy unlikeable or annoying, but it’s disappointing for a character that’s teased as being responsible for rounding up every group of Rangers in history. He’s better in the last handful of episodes where lines force him to actually yell and emote, but he’s got a long way to go.

The Characters

Despite the high marks the cast gets, it’s worth noting that the praise and criticism given for their performances are pretty much exactly what was said in the series premiere review last February. Quite simply: the Ranger characters don’t change. At all.

One thing even the worst seasons of Power Rangers deserve credit for is that there’s always some sort of goal for the characters, superficial as they may be. It may be as detailed as an inferiority complex stemming from filling the shoes of a dead sibling, or it might be as simple as wanting to be the best leader you can be. Megaforce, instead, gives absolutely nothing for any character, outside of “defeat the bad guys!” Even an episode that’s wholly focused on stealing dreams cops out, instead focusing on short-term desires like Emma’s yearning to take a really good photo, rather than…well…any insight into the characters. The most personal struggle we get is the (now bordering on creepy) one-way crush between Jake and Gia, but that’s at exactly the same place as it was in episode one and is mostly played for laughs.

Unsurprisingly, very little is done with the supporting comic relief characters, Mr. Burley and Ernie, either, though they’re used significantly better than the waste Paul Schier’s return was in Samurai. Robo Knight, who was touched on above, is probably the most engaging character, but his arc is so truncated that it should hardly count as the centerpiece. Gosei and Tensou are also mostly irrelevant as the mentor and sidekick characters, barely interacting with the Rangers throughout the season. They function well as exposition-machines, but as expies of the loveable Zordon and Alpha, they fall flat due to their extreme lack of screentime.

The villains all pretty much share the same personality, too. Samurai also had this problem, but at least managed to offset it with the inclusion of the conflicted villain, Deker. Megaforce‘s villains aren’t funny, nor threatening, nor creative, and thus not interesting. There’s some bits in the finale that show their loyalty to a fault, Metal Alice specifically, but it’s nothing that’s ever actually touched on in-depth. We even have multiple villain factions, which could have led to some antagonism and in-fighting, but nothing comes of it. Even the individual monsters-of-the-week are extremely forgettable.

The show has proven in its best seasons that it’s adept at weaving masterful character development into the colorful explosions, often for villains and supporting characters as much as the Rangers themselves. But Megaforce doesn’t even try to reach the lowest common denominator. Outside of Robo Knight, there’s nothing.

The Plot

And that’s the major issue that brings this all down. The plot is pretty much “Beat these aliens, beat these other aliens, beat these robots, cliffhanger.” The biggest story points involve the Rangers getting their new toys, but unlike virtually any season before it, there’s no personal struggle to parallel the upgrades. In most cases, they’re simply given a new weapon for no reason other than for the sake of having a new weapon.

In “Gosei Ultimate”, for example, they create the most insane Megazord in quite a while–which literally has Gosei and the entire command center transform into part of the zord. That’s actually a wild and fun development, but it’s played as “Oh, Gosei lived in a spaceship all along, here’s a new zord!” and that’s it. Some individuals plot are promising–like a unique-to-Power Rangers bomb on a train scenario, or a story about a robot villain accidentally getting turned good–are decent, but never go a far as they could and get wrapped up without any consequences. The addition of Troy’s precognitive dreams about a Ranger War end up being nothing more than an extended tease at the following season, rather than the beginning of any kind of arc. In a way, it only makes this season want to go by faster so we can get to it, rather than amp up any excitement.

The strong finale even suffers from the lack of consequences. It has a tense section of the Rangers losing their powers, but they regain them within minutes. We do showcase the Rangers’ bravery as they charge in without their powers–one of the best moments of the season–but they’re just handed their powers back in an almost-literal deus ex machina by way of Robo Knight. There’s shades that the season was supposed to be leading up to this, considering Robo Knight does make a sacrifice for his human teammates, and that’s part of why “End Game” succeeds. But it fails because of the episodes that came before it; we’ve already seen Robo Knight prove his loyalty, and Rangers prove their bravery multiple times before this, thanks to the predictable “wrap-it-all-up” nature of the previous episodes.

Power Rangers as a show will always have its limits. But the frustrations of Megaforce are how much room and potential the show had to explore, and yet decided to go with the easiest possible route. The show is intent on harkening back to the simpler days of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, but forgets the hellish production and hard work it took cutting and shifting everything around to tell the story they wanted to tell. Mighty Morphin may not have been the pinnacle of storytelling for the franchise, but the people cared enough to, at one point, cut together four different sources of Sentai footage just so they could more effectively tell their story in this established world. When they didn’t cut it together carefully, it was one of the most incomprehensible things on TV. Even with the show’s infamous cheapness, more effort had to be put than most viewers realize in order to make it all remotely work.

Megaforce, while fun and harmless on the surface, represents a lazy approach to this type of adaptation–lots and lots and lots of recycled source material, and the most minimal storytelling possible. It definitely harkens back to the very earliest days of the franchise, but leaves out the loveable kitsch, wacky humor and creativity and replaces it with straight-laced blandness. And that’s sad, because again, it really has quite a lot going for it.

The Verdict

For veterans of the franchise, Power Rangers Megaforce is best described as being on a level of 2000’s Lightspeed Rescue in terms of blandness and overall lack of investment. That particular season does, admittedly, have quite a following, but it was also treated with much more maturity at the time. That right there is Megaforce‘s problem, really; it’s bland, the most generic season of Power Rangers we’ve ever had, and without any of the growth achieved over the last 20 years.

But even with all the criticisms, this is a generally enjoyable season for the most part. In the end, that probably negates much of the criticism–fun is the point of the show (outside of selling toys), and is exactly why the franchise has lasted. The frustrations spawn from the fact that Megaforce has really caught the attention of the public again, but instead of showing off the maturity the show’s obtained by doing a season on the same level of RPM, Time Force, Lost Galaxy, etc., it’s chosen to be another run-of-the-mill kids’ show. There’s nothing wrong with that, but when you can be something more, why not go for it?

That’s the question left in its finale cliffhanger. Super Megaforce is, as far as we know, meant to be the actual, for real anniversary season that’s been teased since 2012. That’s all well and good, but in retrospect it makes this entire 21-episode stretch feel like filler. “End Game” could have aired two episodes after “Mega Mission”, and all that would need to be thrown in between would be an introduction of Robo Knight and the Ultra Mode power-up. That’s kind of pathetic for a run that took about 10 months to complete. But it’s worth noting that previous seasons did often take a while to get going; all the big revelations in 1998’s In Space didn’t happen until around the midway point of its 43 episode season, where it became one of the best seasons ever. Megaforce is essentially just half a season in itself, which opens up promise for the next 20. Let’s just hope Super Megaforce doesn’t squander that promise in the way Megaforce has thus far.

Best Episodes: “Mega Mission”, “The Human Condition”, “End Game”

Worst Episodes: “He Blasted Me With Science”, “Harmony and Dizchord”, “Who’s Crying Now?”